~Pramod Snehi~
Translated by Yuyutsu Sharma
In the remote mountain villages
little children are playing
in the dust of the famished streets.
And uninterrupted
in the vivid mirrors
of their eyes are dancing
stunning sequences of a beautiful hunger.
More than hunger
of a loaf of bread
an ache of a sweet hunger of dreams
keeps kicking in their sleep.
Hunger after hunger
lined up, piled up, accumulated
and put on display
in the weekly hillside Haat-bazaars
of children’s precious dreams.
Restless, impetuous,
wanting to free themselves
they seem to leap
into the sweet hunger of dreams.
In the green eye of the distant mountains
with their soft lead pencils
they are drawing
abstract pictures of a sweet hunger.
They are engaged in forgetting
their true selves in the sweet hunger of dreams.
All year long in the blue eyes
of these children I keep reading
a lasting harvest
of a sweet hunger of dreams.
